by Chris Moss
I know what to do. He reached down and touched the piece of silvered skull strapped to his side for reassurance.
“Get out of my way,” he yelled. Without a word, the struggling Divine Guard, Chonoroq, and escaping spectators stopped and backed away.
Maal spotted him and offered a cruel smile.
Kestel held up his sword. “Burn.” Crimson flames started to lick up and down the sword’s length, prickling his skin.
He lunged toward the Goddess while, above them, Musmahu and the Angel collided in peals of thunder and fire. Kestel no longer had the strength to yell, but he twisted away from a steaming acid spray and leaped again toward Maal.
The Goddess brought up both her arms, summoning a golden ball of liquid death large enough to dissolve the entire stone platform. “Time to join your friend—” She looked down at the burning blade in her chest. The golden acid dissolved back into air, and the beautiful figure stumbled back. “But, I’m a God…” She fell to her knees and clawed at the burning blade.
Turning his back on her, Kestel limped over to Eriwasteg’s limp body. He put a hand on the young woman’s honeyed cheek. “Live.” Eriwasteg remained motionless, even as Kestel kissed her and asked again. “Live, please.”
Behind him, the screams of the wounded mixed with a grisly, tearing noise. Musmahu’s broken body crashed to the ground in a wave of dust. Rawshnet howled in despair, summoning his surviving Chonoroq to retreat into the ruined city. Through it all, Kestel stroked Eriwasteg’s blood-stained hair, gasping at the hollowness in his chest.
Kestel, said Creven.
Kestel shook his head.
“Kestel.”
“Go away,” he said.
“Herald.”
Kestel blinked and looked up. Above him stood a wrinkled, old man—naked and hairless. The figure’s skin matched the color of old bones and had two darkened holes where his eyes should have been.
“Who are you?”
The ivory figure straightened and stretched forth a pair of powerful, silver wings, the feathers sharp-edged and glittering like knives.
“I am the Angel of this Age,” the old man said. “Trapped for a century inside the beast by Maal’s treachery. Now that I am free, we have much work to do. Come.”
“Bring her back,” said Kestel.
The Angel cocked his bald head. “Why?”
“Maal used you to resurrect the hydra. You have the power to bring her back.”
The Angel’s mouth shut with a hollow snap. He reached down to Eriwasteg’s body, his fingers dissolving into white light that ran over her burned skin.
We did it, Herald, said Creven. We summoned the Angel. The Prioress was right.
The winged-figure stepped back and the woman’s face twitched.
“Eriwasteg.” Kestel leaned in close. She rewarded his gentle words with a hacking cough, spraying a gobbet of dark blood all over his chest.
Eriwasteg coughed again and opened her eyes. “Kestel?” She reached up and touched his face. “W-what happened? Something hit me.”
“It is time,” said the Angel in a tone of command. “Herald. You must leave this evil place. Your task is to carry a message to—”
“Go away,” said Kestel, his eyes fixed on the young woman before him.
The black holes where the Angel’s eye should have been turned a bright gold. “You have a duty, Herald. I have brought back this woman.”
Kestel raised his gaze, his face creased in frustration. “And what about Arbalis? What about Tollit? Or Mollis and Calla? What about the people lying around us, or the hundreds who died on this platform as you ate them alive? Will you bring them back too?”
“You cannot deny your appointed place!” The ivory figure flapped his wings in agitation and the stones trembled. “The entire world will suffer!”
“I will take responsibility for my choices. I am the Herald—but not as a puppet, nor as a God. We humans will have to make our choices together.” Kestel lifted Eriwasteg as gently as his tired shoulders would allow.
The Angel floated forward. “Very well, Herald.” The pale figure rose up into the morning air and stretched forth its wings. Dissolving, it left only a white haze and a voice whispering on the breeze. “The Authority—and responsibility—is yours to use as you see fit. When you need me, summon me forth.”
Kestel turned his back on the empty sky and tottered toward the edge of the shattered platform. How would he get Eriwasteg through the wreckage and out of the city?
The shattered remains of Musmahu lay cold across the broken walls of the Amphitheater, black body torn open like a gutted fish. At the beast’s feet lay Maal’s lifeless frame, the Goddess as anonymous in death as the corpses surrounding her. Around Kestel and Eriwasteg, streams of men and women stumbled out of the wreckage, trying to escape back into the city.
“Thank you,” whispered Eriwasteg. She wrapped her arms around Kestel. “I think I could have taken them though.”
Kestel laughed, his joy turning into coughs in the dusty air. He leaned down and planted a gentle kiss on her temple. “I love you.”
“I know.” She stole a kiss from his lips. “So, where are we going next?”
Kestel smiled. “I know a place.”
39
My final analysis is that there is a common thread that binds the actions of all the Heralds, from Herald Simone, leading the armies of the Emperor against the Yaygr tribes, to Herald Tarquil’s small and gentle changes that guarded the people against the Red Plague. In each case, their choices were not wishes—rather, they were corrections.
~from ‘Lives of the Great Heralds’ by Sartorius,
dated 821st year of the Empire~
Julia sat across from the Prioress, the fireplace crackling beside them. The Prioress put a thoughtful finger to her lips and shifted a small pewter dragon across the game board. Julia fingered a silver game piece of her own, pausing, before moving the tiny, wrought angel across the wooden tiles.
“My game, I believe.”
The Prioress looked down at the metal figures and mustered a tired smile. “I’m still distracted from today’s events. So many dead—just for one man’s vanity.”
“Our losses were minimal.” Julia nodded and started clearing away the game, returning the tiny pantheon to its box. “But the city’s a mess.”
“And Rowan?”
“Captured at his mansion when we raided the Regal Estates. Do you wish a trial or shall he…take his own life out of shame?”
The Prioress shook her head. “Your methods will not be needed. The League of Nobles will execute him for us before the week is out. Those who have not escaped to the Outer Coast are already clamoring for a pardon.”
“Don’t give them another chance.”
“We will need them, Spymistress,” said the old woman, looking into the fire. “Before this is over, we will need every one of them. Whatever else Darius was, he was not a fool.”
A sudden chill crawled up Julia’s spine. “What do you mean?”
The Prioress ran a hand over her wrinkled cheeks and then picked up the tiny silver angel from the game box, examining it in the firelight. “For good or for ill, whatever was started at the Shrine of the Itchthypagoi has blossomed. I can feel it all around me—soon others will feel the change, too. The war with Rowan was only a distraction. The re-conquest of the continent is about to begin.”
“You have seen yourself back in the Old Capital? Back in the Old Citadel?”
“No, not me.” The Prioress’s tone sounded grave. “But, first we must repair the damage Maal’s agent has caused. Tell me, do you want to continue as Spymistress?”
“No hesitation,” said Julia, her voice cold.
“I’m sorry such services are required of you. But for now, I beg your leave from another game. I’m tired, and my eyes have seen too much death today.”
The Spymistress bowed her head and stalked out of the room through the tiny wooden door. Turning through the maze of darkened tunne
ls, she made her way into the library and pulled herself up the stairs to her desk. The map she had made of her trap for Gyges ten years ago was gone, returned to its place in a restricted section of the archive.
In its place was a small, wooden cradle, holding a bloodstained silver dagger. Julia’s old bones cried out for sleep, but the Spymistress caressed the dagger.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Silence was her only reply.
She sighed and set to work on the pile of reports stacked up before her, marking out notes in the margins with her shaking hands.
40
Kestel lay in a pile of rags and stroked Eriwasteg’s hair. Fast asleep in his lap, the Baavghirla girl’s breathing was slow and regular. He resisted the urge to kiss her amber skin. The ruined warehouse had been home to numerous groups of street urchins since Kestel had left the place. He tried not to smile at the dirty, young boy and girl peeking around a wooden pillar at the far end of the space.
Kestel sighed and leaned back on the makeshift bed.
Why so sad, Herald? said Creven.
“There’s so much I have to do,” Kestel whispered, his vision drifting and flickering with images of what might be. “Most of the Capital is at a standstill, and none of the outlying regions even know what’s happened yet. The Exsilium armies are still going to have to fight through dozens of towns, each with their own Immortal ruling in Maal’s stead.”
They won’t last.
“That’s the problem. Most of the country doesn’t know how to grow their own food anymore, and now that there’s no more Bloodwyne—”
You will find a way.
“I will,” said Kestel with a nod. “No complaints.”
Then it’s time for me to go, Herald.
Kestel blinked in surprise. Careful not the wake Eriwasteg, he reached down and unknotted the reliquary from his hip. He held the piece of silvered skull in front of him. “What do you mean?”
You have to let me go.
“Creven, I couldn’t have defeated Maal without you. I need your advice.”
No, you don’t. You have everything that you need.
“But why?”
Because I can’t exist like this, Kestel. Sixty years ago, I was sentenced to death. Prior Sergio offered to support my wife and daughter if I performed a service for the Citadel.
“You had a family?”
Yes. They had good lives—or at least I hope so. When I agreed to Prior Sergio’s terms, I awoke in the Crypts and began to wait. Sixty years, Kestel—I sat in the dark and waited sixty years for you to find me.
“Creven, I’m sorry,” whispered Kestel. “I didn’t know.”
It’s alright, but my penance is over. Please, let me go.
Kestel nodded and held the skull in a shaft of moonlight leaking through the boarded-up windows. “Thank you, Creven.”
It was fun, Herald. Give your lady-love a kiss for me.
Kestel’s face screwed up into a smile and he focused on the reliquary. “Dissolve.”
The silvered skull disintegrated into dust and drifted away into the night air. Kestel leaned back and held Eriwasteg close, thinking about those he lost.